What follows is a damning letter to the Editor of Jewish Journal for printing false accusations against Israel. It was written by an expert on such matters whom I know. Ted Belman
I don’t want to play one-man truth squad for the Jewish Journal. HOWEVER, RESPONSIBLE EDITORSHIP WOULD REQUIRE YOU TO REVIEW THE FACTS BEFORE PLACING UNSUBSTANTIATED ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE IDF BEFORE YOU READERS. If the past is an example, then 90% or more of the accusations will prove to be false. By that time the rotten taint that you helped spread will be accepted as fact by your readers.
Responding to the article: “The first is the horrific July 16 killing of four Palestinian boys, all cousins, playing on the beach in Gaza, right beneath a hotel where dozens of journalists were staying…..” Previously, the Israelis shelled that beach because Hamas was firing from close to the hotel using it as a shield. When figures were seen on the beach near where the original firing had taken place, it is legitimate to assume that they are the firing crew preparing for a 2nd mission. No one asked why any parent would allow his child to play in an area that had previously been used to launch rockets from.
Again, responding to the article: “A second incident under criminal investigation is the IDF’s infamous shelling of a United Nations school in Khan Younis where civilians had taken shelter on July 24.” The shell did not strike the school. It hit outside and killed the firing crew. Video shows the bodies being arranged and a child, already dead, being placed among the bodies of the firing crew.
Concerning B’Tselem. The article states : “.Just three days ago, … B’Tselem claimed in another scathing report that Israel’s “military law enforcement system is a complete failure… and is marred by severe structural flaws …”
YOUR READERS SHOULD BE MADE AWARE THAT: When the United Nations released the so-called Goldstone Report in September 2009, Israelis and their supporters around the world were astonished by the blunt words near its conclusion: “There is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity.” The report declared that virtually everything Israel had done during Operation Cast Lead—Israel’s attempt in late 2008 and early 2009 to stop Hamas’s rocket war on Israeli civilians—had been a crime. No single written attack on the Jewish state has been as damning, as prominent, or as influential. And yet the South African jurist Richard Goldstone and his team had only a few months to compile a report that runs to nearly 600 pages and makes hundreds of detailed accusations about the Israel Defense Force’s conduct of the war, and Goldstone himself made only a single four-day visit to Gaza. Where did they secure the evidentiary rope with which to hang Israel?
The report was largely compiled from material provided by what is often referred to as Israel’s “human rights community.” This vague euphemism refers to a coterie of groups and individuals that has evolved over the past decade into a highly politicized movement of dozens of nongovernmental organizations that operate in Israel and subject its government, military, laws, and people to relentless scrutiny and accusation. The Goldstone Report relied most heavily on B’Tselem. More footnotes in the report, 56 in all, cite B’Tselem as a source than any other.
As Jessica Montell, then B’Tselem’s executive director, said, B’Tselem “provided extensive assistance to the UN fact-finding mission headed by Justice Goldstone—escorting them to meet victims in Gaza, providing all of our documentation and correspondence, and meeting the mission in Jordan.”
In making such a profound contribution to the Goldstone Report, B’Tselem was performing the task to which it has truly dedicated itself: not the defense of human rights in the West Bank and Gaza, but the delegitimization of Israel and its existence as a Jewish state.
Not Ovenready Said:
Is the Jewish Journal from Los Angeles, CA. If it was I am not surprised. I use to comment on their post, I was un-welcomed to say the lest.
Not Ovenready Said:
Reform or conservative rabbi? Maybe a Jews for yeshu messianic? Unfortunately anyone can call themselves rabbi in America and unfortunately the fakes are accepted by the unwashed along with the real McCoy. There is no longer discernment in the Jewish community and certainly none in the gentile one.
2 weeks back I was in a kosher Miami restaurant which is frequented by newly arrived escapees from France, and while there, grabbed hold of a copy of this thing called ‘Jewish Journal’, thinking it might be the local version of the CJN or Jewish Tribune of Toronto. What a waste of paper. The article by the editor ’emeritous’ (further evidence he has his head up his ass), who happens to be a ‘rabbi’, was something I’d expect from Fareed Zakaria or even Jimmy Carter. It is evident he doesn’t LIKE a good portion of today’s Jews. They make his skin cringe. Just like he makes my skin cringe.